Lydia - Illuminate

A beautiful rainy day near the sea. That's what this album brings into my mind. It's sad yet wonderful and of course this is a masterpiece. With smooth, rhythmic tunes sung with perfect execution by lead singer Leighton Altman and back up vocalist Mindy White. Throughout the album, lead guitarist Steve McGraw shows his talent and experience with large amounts of solos that are each completely different from the other. With so much going on, Lydia masters quite stunningly an expedition of talent and strength. This just might be their best album yet.

Singing back up is Mindy White, although her voice is beautiful, it doesn't sway me the way that it's intended to. To me, her voice is a little flat especially with her leading the song, "Now the One You Once Loved is Leaving".

Most songs start off with a lone sound; vocals, a guitar solo, or a piano solo."This is Twice Now" and "Hospital" are the best done. Especially when the whole band suddenly jumps in, in both songs. In song many songs, Loren Brinton excels with his drumming. He keeps pace with the feel of the music, the sound of the songs. Also, the bass played in "Fate" is absolutely beautiful. It fits with the music but doesn't get lost in it. With all of that being said, it's axiomatic that the songs on this album are very smooth and moving. Every musical note fits together seamlessly, maybe even better than December, their début album (which is really good as well). I especially love how different "All I See" is. It's very simple and yet complex with the lone guitar accompanying Altman and haunting lyrics, "All I See Scares Me Cause No One Waits Forever."

When I saw Lydia back in April, they completely blew my mind, they opened with "This is Twice Now" and ended the night with "Hospital" (Which I think they did just because I got everyone in the front and middle to yell Hospital over and over again.) It was their first time headlining in Canada and the show completely sold out. I'm happy to call this band one of my favourites, they surprise me everyday with their music.